This forum has been dead the past couple days.. where is everybody??
I don't have any hunting stories, but I can tell ya I'm getting pretty excited about my pigeons
I've been raising some pigeons for a few months. I started with 12 (can't say where I got them, can only tell you they're of the "street variety.") And now one of the couples has hatched a brood When I get enough I'll probably, how can I put this tactfully, use them for wing-shooting practice. They're also pretty good for teaching dogs to retrieve. I'm thinking next spring I'll build a bigger hutch, and began mass-production. I can already see how this one is going to be too small. I really like the variety I have now, 4 black, 1 brown, 7 grey, and the babies, that are just now starting to fledge, one grey and one black. Many of the birds also have white, in various areas, on them.
Let me know if anyone else here raises birds for hunting/or dog practice. Hope this helps to break the "quite spell." hehe

BadMedicine,
You are too much! keep us posted on your "kids"! I agree, by the way, this forum has been real slow lately. New hampshire has a special kid's hunt this weekend where kids under 16 can have a chance to hunt deer for 2 days before any body else as long as they are accompanied by a licensed adult. I'm taking my son out to do the real thing after a whole year of shooting practice and the occasional pop quiz on rules of the hunt.

BadMedicine here's something for you to try along the same lines. We raised "silkies" a type of chicken which are very broody. Those hens will hatch any egg that you put under them. So what we have done in the past is take the eggs from the pigeons (they will lay again if you do) and put them under the hen. That way you can more than double your bird production in the same amount of time. Just keep taking the eggs away from the pigeons and putting them under the hen.

Those "silkies" might be something I'll try next spring. Do you have a hen-house for them, or do they just live around your yard? How big are they? I was going to order some quail eggs in the spring, and get a small flock of those around the place too. I think maybe I need a bird dog. The two we have now are lazy house mutts.
The cool thing about pigeons is you can let them loose after a few months, and they'll fly around in the day, but come back to roost. I imagine you could keep quail pretty tame by raising and fedding them around your house.

Quail behave a lot like chickens. It takes very little to have them behaving like all other welfare recipients.

We have blue quail, here in west Texas. I've been feeding in the AM year around, with a solar-charged, battery-powered feeder. I go out in the early afternoon, and make appropriate quail-noises; I have about a dozen who come up when I call and throw hen-scratch out for them. I have worked the little critters where I can take a chair out and sit, and have them feeding between my feet.

Lets see, we netted some with fish nets, out of the air!! we used long poles to knock some out of their roosts, we knocked some off of their loft areas with rocks, and we shot 2, (well actually three, one didn't make it and ended up on the grill ), That survived, and can even fly now!! Most of them were at night, you put the long poled nets but their roost and rattle them around, and they come flying out into the net trying to escape Can't wait to order some quail for the flock

BadMedicine,
I've raised the hens both free ranging and in pens and had better luck in the pens. If you can kill all the predators in the area free ranging is great. Just remember some of the predators will have names and be wearing collars Quail can be difficult to get to adult size if they hatch too early or late in the season but are easy to keep once they are mature. I'll try to find online plans of the funnel shaped return hatch that let's them free range all day then go back in at night and not be able to get back out. Just don't turn all of them out and the loose ones will come back to join the caged ones.

This email link is to reach site administrators for assistance, if you cannot access TFL via other means. If you are a TFL member and can access TFL, please do not use this link; instead, use the forums (like Questions, Suggestions, and Tech Support) or PM an appropriate mod or admin.

If you are experiencing difficulties posting in the Buy/Sell/Trade subforums of TFL, please read the "sticky" announcement threads at the top of the applicable subforum. If you still feel you are qualified to post in those subforums, please contact "Shane Tuttle" (the mod for that portion of TFL) via Private Message for assistance.

This email contact address is not an "Ask the Firearms Expert" service. Such emails will be ignored. If you have a firearm related question, please register and post it on the forums.